Arts & Culture
Around town with Bones – 4/8
I can’t figure out why any artist in their right mind would complain “there’s nothing new” in Milwaukee. Balls! I just saw two great Peter Barrickman paintings at Green Gallery, plus at GGWest, the most minimalist piece of art I’ve ever seen: a slender slice of wood painted white and propped in a corner of GGW’s third floor space, which also houses Club Nutz, the world’s smallest stand-up comedy club. You know, when I talk to John Riepenhoff I feel a real burst of hope for the arts. The people around him are smart and young and energetic. What a tonic. It isn’t that I don’t respect artists who are mature (or old like me), but there comes a time when bi-focals have to give way to firm flesh and sharp eyes and keen ideas. Riepenhoff must be like Dean Jensen was in the olden days, and his adventurous mind reminds me much of Jensen, who is, by the way, a big fan of John and company. Deb Brehmer is down-on-her-knees sorting through piles of drawings from various Wisconsin-based artists. My eyes like Paul Caster’s stuff, but you can decide from seven participants when the show (Tender is the Line) opens in the Portrait Gallery (Floor 5) on Gallery Night & Day (April 17-18). Her expanded space now includes TWO galleries, the latter to be known as “Gallery B,” with walls being painted blood red as I write. Down the hall, also on floor five, Catherine Davidson has established a new little office with walls of eggplant hue. Her larger venue is on floor two. Jilan Glynn is curating a GN&D exhibit at Soups On. Does anyone remember Jane Brite, co-founder of Walker’s Point Center for the Arts? Allegedly, she’s the new “art consultant” for the Charles Allis/Villa Terrace Museums. They’ve ground through quite a number of staffers in the last few years, and seem to be very zipped-lipped when it comes to press releases announcing who’s new and who’s not. I’m really saddened that no one has ventured forth with a guess as to who “Pierre Renee” is. His photographs are hanging in the Riverfront Pizza Bat & Grill on Erie St. I guess no one cares but Mr. Renee, hey? Okay, Stella will sweeten the Pierre pot and buy a veggie pizza for the FIRST person who posts the correct answer in the comment section. All the stupefying silly-ness over whether or not alderpersons like the public sculpture proposed for Wisconsin Avenue. It’s sort of a low blow to make comments about Bob Donavan’s missing teeth though. Or is it tooth? It should be even more stupefying when “concerned” artists mass in order to voice their ego-driven agendas about the project’s ix-nayers. Real artists will be home making art, but Pegi Taylor will likely be out and about milling around. Stella says later gator. There’s way more coming …
Apr 8th, 2009 by Stella Cretek
What Would Jesus Say?
While we’re on the subject of nudes at MAM, and continuing the idea that picking on “Standing Woman” is sexist, here are a few males to consider: Torso of a Male Athlete: Marble. Missing head, arms, one leg and part of another. Some of the penis is gone missing too, but not all of it. Male Ancestor Figure: Wood. What’s that between his legs? The Kiss: Painted plaster cast. No lack of imagination in this one.
Apr 2nd, 2009 by Stella Cretek
Drink Like An Egyptian
Who knows if King Tut was given to tippling, but when his tomb was opened in 1922, three dozen plain pottery wine jars were discovered inside, twenty-six of which had hieroglyphs telling of the vineyard location, the estate where it was produced, and the vinter who produced it. Two pots were labeled “very good.” Tut died in 1352 BC, and perhaps the labels were the first, or almost the first, examples of things to come in the world of labels. A few of the wine jars in the tomb were empty. Or perhaps laced with poison, who knows? My personal favorite label, is pasted in my Cooking of Provincial France cookbook, circa 1968. The label from a Beaujolais Saint-Amour burgundy produced by “Jaboulet-Vercherre,” is square, designed in tones of burgundy, white and metallic gold. Stamped “JV,” it includes a coat-of-arms bannered “in tenebris lumen rectis,” which means, “true light in the darkness.” I drank large draughts of the Beaujolais while mastering the art of whipping up Coquille Saint-Jacques a la Provencale, which incidentally, is best served with a dry white wine. Dude, peel me a grape. Paper labels as we know them today, weren’t developed for general use until around 1860, when manufacturers understood how to make them stick to glass. Prior to that, well-heeled households used silver “bottle tickets” hung by narrow silver chains from wine decanters. In the 1740s, European wineries sold their products unlabeled. They were stored stacked in bins and the bins were then identified with glazed pottery tags. Labels were designed to inform. Consider this from a late 1800s bottle of sweet red Tokay from Hungary: This wine having been stored in wood for the full period necessary for maturity, and all unwholesome acids being thereby eliminated, is safely included in the dietary scale of the invalid; whilst its fine delicate bouquet will please the taste of the connoisseur. Makes you want to drink yourself stupid doesn’t it? In 2001, an image of Mona Lisa sporting a red mustache took first prize in a label-making content hyped by Wine Maker Magazine An obvious rip off of “Got Milk” campaign, I wonder if it bombed? Anyone who shops for wine, knows it’s the label that grabs the eye and it’s the label that clinches the sale. Face it, it’s where “art meets commerce.” The youth of today now drink more wine than beer, and yes, these are the youths who grew up with television, digital graphics, People Magazine, and clothing “branded” with labels. Come on now, who wouldn’t want a bottle of “Marilyn Merlot,” named after Marilyn Monroe who died way back in 1962. She’s there on the label in living color…head thrown back, rosy lips parted to reveal pearly teeth. Her famous eyes are partially closed. Clad in a ribbed white tank-top; a delicate necklace dripping seal shells and polished stone hangs around her famous neck. A wine expert claims Marilyn Merlot (2003 Napa Valley Winery) is “middling,” and it’s suggested that perhaps connoisseurs should […]
Apr 1st, 2009 by Judith Ann Moriarty
Notes from the Visual Arts Forum at Haggerty
Things heard and observed at the State of Art: Open Forum about the Visual Arts in Wisconsin held at the Haggerty Museum of Art on March 26, 2009 Forum participants: Jane Simon, Curator of Exhibitions, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Polly Morris, Director of Development, Marketing & Outreach at UWM Peck School of the Arts, Milwaukee Arts Board member. George Tzougros, Executive Director, Wisconsin Arts Board. Debra Brehmer, arts writer, owner of Portrait Society Gallery and art history instructor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design * I arrived early to look at the Current Tendencies: Ten Artists from Wisconsin survey show. I am impressed and captivated, mostly at the transformation Haggerty itself has undergone in the past year to expand its space and scope. Gone are the permanent collection pieces that often featured religious themes and replaced with more provacative work. The selections in this show seemed to be calculated, however, to find individuals set to specific voices. In one room, beaded dolls from Anne Kingsbury seem Native American. The next room has giant paintings of nude Black males by George Williams, Jr. The next, minimalist folk art objects by the late Peter Bardy. Another incredible room created by Jennifer Angus is covered with faux-wallpaper insects and 3D bugs over all four walls. One more room contains paper cutting art by Xiaohong Zhang. The other five artists are less distinct in perspective (except maybe Sonja Thomsen’s Lacuna, which could be described as Caucasians in Wisconsin based on content and concept) but they are all just as compelling. The evening starts as the room nearly fills. Haggerty Museum Director Walter Mason gives an opening speech about questions circling visual thinking and then gives directions on what will happen here. There is to be introductions followed by opening up to the floor to queries. He makes an aside, seemingly joking, that there will be no complaining. This falls on deaf ears as the conversation will immediately devolve to subjects of funding, exposure, and the lack of critical evaluation of local art. If I had a chance to ask a question, it would have been more like “so what have you seen lately and how did it move you?” I always attend these events hoping to talk about art, but they always end up being about tangential subjects to art itself. Introductions start with Debra Brehmer, who takes up the most time initially with a clever photoshopping of a crucifixion painting showing a trinity of artist, dealer, and collector along with bystanders representing media, educators, and others. As the former editor of Art Muscle, Brehmer laments the present-day lack of a print publication that could showcase and critique local art (like Art in America does in a national publication). Evoking Art Muscle’s name will happen again and again by the audience, who may not understand the financial difficulty with putting out a physical edition of something in a period of skyrocketing paper costs and plummeting ad revenue. George Tzougros is next. He’s thankful for […]
Mar 27th, 2009 by Brian Jacobson
Denouement
It’s official: Takashi Soga’s proposal has been approved for the Lincoln Park site. On March 13, the public art committee voted in favor of Soga’s project, bringing some closure (for now) to what has been an arduous and controversial process. First things first, though: some corrections and clarifications need to be made. In Part One of this piece I included an excerpt from a press release written by Pegi Taylor of IN:SITE, and also stated that Soga’s project would cause the City of Milwaukee to incur an additional $100,000 on top of the $250,000 budget for this site. I was able to obtain Takashi Soga’s official proposal (not available in time for Part One) and verified that each of Soga’s proposed pieces would stay within the amount allotted. However, the hubbub was not because of an additional $100K; it was simply that this amount of the budget would be spent on design fees, a misinterpretation on my part. Despite the fact that the piece will stay within the budget, IN: SITE still questions whether $100K in design fees is “appropriate … for a piece Soga has already designed.” IN: SITE raises the question as to whether or not the design fees are “paying for [Soga’s] name.” In Part One, I also reported that a proposal by local artists John Riepenhoff, Cat Pham and Sarah Luther was included in the top five submissions. It has come to my attention by selection committee member Barbara Opferman that this is also incorrect. Though an innovative concept, this project was not a finalist for the selection committee. However, it was favored by IN: SITE as a superior design. That’s what we know now. Here’s what you may not know. The Takashi Soga decision was not made overnight. In fact, the selection process for the Lincoln Park site began over a year ago when the original call for artists went out. At that time, however, the selection committee was not able to make a unified decision. “We interviewed 3 artists,” says Opferman, “They were from Chicago, Iowa, and Canada. I believe we received about 10 responses from the community at that meeting. As a board, we were unable to come to a consensus for a variety of aesthetic and practical reasons, which is why we revised the RFP and decided to repeat the process.” The second RFP went out in November 2008 and over 100 entries were reviewed. Local sculptor Richard Taylor sat on the public art selection committee for this second round of submissions. “We narrowed it down to a group of 6 or 8 potential artists, and with further discussion on each of these, found something to object to in all of them except Takashi Soga’s work,” Taylor says, adding, “There were a number of us on the committee who immediately reacted to Soga’s work as rising above all other entries.” The principal objections to the other proposals were based on their vulnerability to vandalism, whether the materials used would stand up to […]
Mar 26th, 2009 by Erin Petersen
Art and money
It’s hard to keep your eyes off the blood on the walls. I’m talking about the work of Steve Somers, a graduate of both Milwaukee’s High School of the Arts and MIAD. He’s worked as a curator, exhibited at the now-defunct Luckystar Gallery, the Milwaukee Art Museum as part of several Cedar Block events, and most recently at the Acrylic Age Gallery in Berlin (Germany – not Wisconsin). We’re in his home discussing a few things – chiefly how he walks the line between making a living and making art. Steve spends his days working commercially for clients like McDonald’s and Disney and spends his free time painting (as well as putting together a self-published book of his own work – Individuals in a Group – available later this year). I’d look out of touch if I didn’t ask the most obvious question – the one you can’t escape from these days: “Has the economy effected your work?” Steve initially answers “No,” and then, quickly, “But I haven’t scheduled any shows this year.” Steve explains that he’s going to spend the time “working on bigger pieces; more epic works” and that he’s challenging himself and “concentrating on painting.” No one could ever look at Steve’s work – chuck-full of festering wounds, contorted figures writhing in agony and bizarre plant life – and accuse him of playing to the consumer, but he echoes what I’ve heard from several area artists. Instead of following the retail trend to lower prices and produce smaller less expensive work artists have begun just get back to basics – making art. An upside to the current economic slump? Well, there’s got to be a silver lining – right? Art made with the purest of intentions, bucking the decade long trend of art for commerce and returning to art for art’s sake, sounds 99.9% pure. See Steve’s art: http://stevesomersart.com/
Mar 26th, 2009 by Gene Evans
Inaugural post not-quite-brought to you by St. Pat’s Day
Introductions are so far and few between, aren’t they? Ironically, in an age of iPhones and social networking, it’s getting a little tougher to meet new people. Sure, you could befriend a friend of a friend on Facebook because you think their comments are witty, then spend the afternoon poking the hell out of them, but there’s a good chance you won’t recognize them sitting next to you – whilst tweeting your brains out – at your preferred coffee haunt. I’m talking about really meeting someone. In a rush of insanity I thought I would use a St. Patrick’s party I was invited to as a catalyst to introduce you to the concept of this new column. That’s right, I thought why not use the most drunken night of the year – New Year’s Eve aside – as an opportunity to introduce you to a few creative types (artists, photographers, writers, etc.) and take you to a few places (studios, galleries, White Castle) you may not have the time to visit? This also relieves my wife of the pressure of being the sole audience of my incessant ranting. Well, once the party started, the food was too delicious, the beer too cold and the BS of too high a quality to be a buzz kill and start talking shop – who wants to be that guy? So an “official” start will have to wait a few days – or at least till St. Patrick stops dancing on my head. In the upcoming weeks look forward to meeting new people – artsy types, entrepreneurs, and local mucky-mucks – vicariously, while I have all the fun shaking their hands and talking to them. I’ll try to be gentle, but I ain’t making any promises.
Mar 19th, 2009 by Gene Evans
Blarney Stoned
Oh Bridget where be ye? And who be ye? A Sheehan, Moran, Sullivan? Do you really expect me to find your gravesite with such slim pickins? No birth certificate, only the date (1849) you arrived on these shores, bound from Inch Bridge in Ireland, perhaps married (to John Moriarty, laborer), ten years your senior. A wedding certificate indicates you maybe married John in Massachusetts, but your name is oddly smeared on the document. So many Bridgets, so many Johns, how to know which one belongs to you? It’s said you were buried in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I drove there and couldn’t find you on the plains where sheep once roamed. I’ve searched Iowa gravesites too, near where you bought land in Muscatine County, Iowa, lots of graves, but no you; rows and rows of bones, but no you resting beneath slabs embellished with stuffed teddy bears, strange photographs, sagging crosses and angels with missing parts. Uh oh Bridget, it says here on the yellowing document I unearthed in the Muscatine County courthouse, that you lifted your skirts to neighboring farmer Henry Stoneburner. The document, filed and signed by John Moriarty (with an “X”), points fingers at two October nights, then asks for a divorce AND alimony. The trail petered out, so I’m guessing you refused the divorce, good Catholic be ye. Or were ye? Okay, the Iowa winters were long and hard and Stoneburner was only a stone’s throw away, plus he must have recognized a good plow when he saw one, but shouldn’t ye have known better? Also, I’m given to wondering just how John knew what you were up to. Apparently he drifted away after he addressing the court (leaving you with two kids), but his name, “Wandering John,” is still legendary in 2009. Could be he fled home to Ireland and drank his days away, but in all fairness, he may have been an okay chap saddled with the wrong woman in the wrong place in the wrong time. While grave searching in South Dakota, were you looking up from your pine box and laughing at me, your great granddaughter on a useless mission, combing through the weeds and crumbling slabs to no avail? I mean to say, why should I give a hoot about you? Though named after a saint, you were apparently not one. That said, I do admire your grit. So tell me, how did you manage to get through the Pearly Gates? As a Moran, a Sheehan, a Sullivan, a Moriarty? Things are tough enough up there, what with identity theft and wigs and false noses and plastic surgery, some of it transgender. Unsnarling the heavenly list must be nigh impossible, and whoever was guarding the Gates the day you waltzed through with your skirts held high, was likely snookered grandly. I’m guessing here. Did you know that one of Wandering John’s ancestors (a Maurice Moriarty by name) chased the Earl of Desmond into the Slieve Mish Mountains where he cut off his […]
Mar 17th, 2009 by Stella Cretek
The New Mar-Ho?
Floor Two in the Marshall Building is getting crowded! Step of the elevator and directly in front of your face is Catherine Davidson’s gallery, and around the corner from that is Gallery 218. Down the hall and to the right is a space Stella hears is going to be the new gallery space for the Wisconsin Visual Artists organization (formerly Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors), the oldest non-profit in the state dedicated to visual artists based in this state. We’re wondering if this place will represent only artists in the southeast chapter, or will it house the works of WVA’s other chapters? Rumors are rumors. We’re just asking. Whatever, a furtive look into the area reveals a large area set behind double glass doors. When we visited in early March, the concrete floor was newly stained and two royal blue chairs were in place. It’s said it will be open for the coming Gallery Night & Day. So Mar-Ho allegedly is the place to be, at least from the standpoint of having a wealth of grazing possibilities. Floor five is alive with the Portrait Gallery and their additional new space directly across the hall, and floor one is home to Grava Gallery and the adjacent Elaine Erickson Gallery, whose owner chirped “the more the merrier.” Of course, it’s only merry if dealers are actually selling art, and what they sell (quality anyone?) should be the primary concern of anyone and everyone seeking something other than the banal. The aforementioned Catherine Davidson also has an office on floor five, with walls painted a great shade of “eggplant” that will do for my purposes. The front entry to the Marshall Building could use a face-lift, as could the lobby which is awash with sandwich boards hyping what’s where. As is, it’s like stepping into a rummage-0-rama. This can be fixed however. Lurking behind various other doors in Mar-Ho are attorneys, masseuse types, party planners, a female detective, the Shepherd Express, and who knows what? Should you desire, Jings serves great Chinese eats, and a reasonably priced cup of joe is available (with cigarettes!) in the wee space on the first floor. Everyone is harping about the big increase in Third Ward parking meter fees, which seems like a duh! move in these problematical times, but then again, perhaps the powers that be figure that anyone shopping in the Third Ward has plenty of change to spare and they are happy to take it.
Mar 12th, 2009 by Stella Cretek
Stonewalled
John Riepenhoff of Green Gallery fame, kindly send me a folder of jpeg images for a proposal he and his collaborators submitted for the Lincoln Park space. Here is an exact quote from Mr. Riepenhoff: “Attached is our proposal, they didn’t ask for budget and had limited space for description and slides on the first round of submissions, but they were supposed to invite several artists back to give a proposal talk that Soga gave so the committee could decide from the more in depth interview process who they like best, but somehow Soga was the only one the subcommittee allowed to speak.” If you’ve been following the controversy (led my Pegi Taylor of In Site), Ripenhoff’s contribution is one more piece of the puzzle. In the above quote, he says “but somehow,” and now you may ask, “but how some (Soga) and not others?”
Mar 12th, 2009 by Stella Cretek
An Artist’s Statement (How to Write One)
I was just a little kid when I picked up my first ever crayola and made a mark on paper. Oh, it was exciting to realize I too could be an artist. In kindergarten I won an award for the best drawing of a single line. My family was very poor and so we had only one crayon (a red one!). I’ve been using one color (red) ever since those days. I owe it all to my mother who used one red crayon. My grandma was a big help. Her hair was red. She was a huge influence, though it left a wide scar on my psyche when she died the day before her roots were retouched. It’s moments like that that shape artists and set them on their way. I’m often asked what my paintings “mean.” I dunno. Art is in the eye of the beholder isn’t it? Leastwise, that’s what I hear. People who demand to understand art are off-track, which maybe is why I bombed out during my art education years. My professor told me that I must move on from making a single red line. That seemed unfair and, in many ways, elitist. Stardom isn’t important to me, though sometimes I do feel a bit of envy when I notice art that is made with, say, two lines in green; but then again, we all have our special talents, and one line in red is mine. God works in strange ways. Did I mention that in third grade I won a prize for filling the most sheets of expensive paper with my single red line? The teacher hung it in the room as an example of flat-line thinking. My advice to aspiring artists? Oh dear, well, I guess I’d say stick to your guns and don’t be swayed by choices now that you (perhaps) have an entire box of dazzling Crayolas. After all, it’s up to viewers to decide what my single red line means. It could be a deer peeking out from a forest, or maybe a sunset in the Rockies. Next year I’ve been invited to exhibit my one million drawings, which actually are Xeroxed copies of the piece I did in kindergarten so many years ago. Other artists have begun to steal my ideas, and I say More Power To Them. That said, I like to think I am the one and only original which is why I sign my name (Hortense “Honey” Swartzburger) in big black marker across the front of each piece. Snobs tell me that no respected artist scrawls her names on the front of her work, but that’s their problem. My work is in various collections throughout the globe: SockitTumi Shoe Laces in Hiroshima, Bees & Babes Poster Shoppe in Hackensack (New Jersey), and even in the permanent collection at MOMA (Museum of Maligned Art) in Swampyville, Georgia. Each and every day is spent Xeroxing my mark. It’s a lonely life but I’m not complaining. It’s what I do.
Mar 11th, 2009 by Stella Cretek
In the Dick of Time
This whole media flap about the ‘Tosa mom who objects to (among other things) MAM’s “Standing Woman” sculpture, weighs in too heavily on the side of tits and ass, i.e. the bodacious breasts and the lusty bottom on the woman standing tall. Odd isn’t it, that no mention has been made of the penises, of which there are a few standing proud in the Folk Art Collection at MAM. I guess you could call them “woodies” as they actually are to be found in carvings from wood. Take your time trying to spot them. Picking on Standing Woman is out and out sexist. Give the dame a break. The outcry from the uber-right reminds me of an incident that occurred when former Milwaukee artist, Carrie Scoczek, had the nerve to display some sculptures of male nudes in a storefront in Walkers Point. Shortly after they were installed, she strolled by the store/gallery and noticed each penis had been covered with band-aids, a twist on the old fig leaf thing. The gallery owner said he covered them because they were offensive. Have we lost our collective memories? I remember when performance artist Karen Findley stripped to the buff at a Walker’s Point gallery, much to the delight of the crowd. I think she then busied herself by slathering on syrup and feathers. Maybe I’m imagining this, but I’m almost sure that in MAM’s heady performance art days, a guy buck naked hung by his ankles in the east wing. And then there was actor John Schneider in the altogether at a Theater-X performance….
Mar 10th, 2009 by Stella Cretek
